adminAbel Zhakata Senior Reporter
FORMER Mutare town clerk Mr Obert Muzawazi said he opted to resign from the post to give the local authority time to attend to issues that were affecting effective service delivery in the city.
The municipality on Wednesday quickly appointed its Housing and Community Services director Mr Stenard Mapurisa as the acting chief executive officer following a special council meeting held on the same day.
In his resignation letter dated January 26, 2016 addressed to the mayor, Councillor Tatenda Nhamarare, the under-pressure former town clerk said the resignation was by mutual consent.
“I hereby submit my resignation from the post of the town clerk with immediate effect and proceed on early retirement. It is my desire to make this separation as peaceful as possible in order to allow the council time to quickly attend to issues of importance to the survival of the city. I thank the council and the people of Mutare for the support and co-operation during my tenure in office,” read the letter.
Cllr Nhamarare said council accepted his resignation and is seized with the need to quickly bring sanity regarding operations at the Civic Centre.
“Council accepted his resignation and we wish him well wherever he goes. As council we have appointed Mr Mapurisa as the acting town clerk.
“We need to move with speed and ensure that we deal with issues that were hampering effective service delivery in the city. We will inform ratepayers on the progress we are making in line with the findings of the audit report,” he said.
When contacted for comment, Mr Mapurisa said it was still premature for him to spell out how he is going to stir the bankrupt municipality in the interim.
“This is a very big challenge as there are a lot of real pressing issues affecting the city that need to be urgently addressed. For now it is still premature to tell you how we are going to move ahead but we are appealing to all stakeholders to give us the chance and time to do the best we can,” he said.
Mr Muzawazi’s resignation follows demonstrations which rocked the city last Wednesday, with residents protesting against findings of a recent Government audit which exposed rampant corruption and breakdown of service delivery at the municipality. The special audit investigation on employment costs for the Mutare City Council was carried out as directed by the Secretary of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Engineer George Mlilo following reports that the council’s staff salaries had remained unpaid for more than 18 months.
The audit investigation was conducted from December 10-19, 2015 and was focusing on the period from June 2014 to November 2015.
Mr Muzawazi was appointed town clerk in 2007 and had previous stints with Rusape Town Council where he served as town secretary and Chinhoyi where he served as town clerk before coming back to Mutare where he was first appointed chamber secretary.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that some directors at the local authority were contemplating tendering resignation letters in the wake of imminent suspensions that will follow results of the audit report.
“The atmosphere here (Civic Centre) is tense because no none knows what will happen tomorrow. Some of our managers are quaking in their shoes fearing that the chop will be dropped on their heads. Let’s wait and find out,” said a source at the local authority.
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